This classic, award-winning program brings to light the complex and controversial history of the mental institution in the U.S. through a detailed study of St. Elizabeth's Hospital in Washington, DC. It also debates whether de-institutionalization has proven to be an overall failure, leaving more patients homeless than are mainstreamed into society, and if the time has come to reintroduce the asylum as a place of therapy and benign confinement.

Rare archival footage, interviews with former patients, and insights from mental health historians David Rothman, of Columbia University, and Gerald Grob, of Rutgers University, make this a documentary not to be missed.